4 ms·

Subpixel rendering works completely fine on Linux. I'm using it right now, using "full" hinting and "RGB" subpixel rendering. It even works completely fine with

by zekica 1y ago

Subpixel rendering works completely fine on Linux. I'm using it right now, using "full" hinting and "RGB" subpixel rendering. It even works completely fine with "non-integer" scaling in KDE, even in firefox when "widget.wayland.fractional-scale.enabled" is enabled.

vouaobrasil 1y ago
On the other hand, subpixel rendering is absent from MacOS and makes it very difficult to using regular ol' 1920x1080 screens with modern MacOS. Yes, those Retina displays look nice, but it's a shame that lower res screens do not because they work perfectly fine except for the font rendering.
- nomel 1y ago
  My first (and last) 1920x1080 monitor was 50lb CRT I picked up on the side of the road, in 2003. I haven't owned a smartphone with a screen resolution that low, in over 10 years. I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions.
  - vouaobrasil 1y ago
    That's true that they aren't interested. But I still like such screens. I used one quite recently, and it worked just fine for my needs.
  - lttlrck 1y ago
    It's still a perfectly serviceable resolution. Of course 16:19 pushed down display costs leading to the demise of 1920x1200 which is unforgivable ;-) Those 120 pixels were sorely missed.
    - hnuser123456 1y ago
      You can still get 16:10, they're just classed as "business professional" models with matching price tag.
      - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
        Buy them refurbished instead, then.
  - sam_lowry_ 1y ago
    Hm... I am reading this on a 1600x900 screen of my T420s Frankenpad while sitting in dusk in a German campsite. I ordered the screen some 10 years ago off Alibaba or something, and it is exactly the resolution and brightness I need. I hope I will die before this Frankenpad, because contemporary laptops are awful in so many aspects. You know... as you age, you really can't read all those tiny characters anyway.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      It sounds like you have a proper computer anyway, do you really care about non-fixed-width fonts? These are office suite and web browser fonts. If something needed to be rendered in some particular way, it should have been a PDF. For everything else there’s vim.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    A Full HD CRT from the roadside in 2003? As if this was just a thing people had happen to them? Is this some elaborate joke I'm missing? > I haven't owned a smartphone with a screen resolution that low Smartphone in italics, because smartphones are known for their low pixel densities, right? What? Did you own a smartphone at all in the past 10 years? Just double checking. > I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions. And how did you reach that conclusion? Did you somehow miss display companies selling and pushing 1440p and 4K monitors left and right for more than a handful of years at this point, and yet the Steam Hardware Survey still bringing out 1080p monitors as the king month to month? Sometimes I really do wonder if I live in a different world to others.
    - hnuser123456 1y ago
      CRT resolution was moreso limited by GPUs than the monitor itself. They don't have fixed pixels like LCD/OLED.
      - perching_aix 1y ago
        They still had very real limitations in terms of the signal they accepted, and color CRTs specifically had discrete color patches forming discrete, fixed number of triads.
      - nomel 1y ago
        > GPUs than the monitor itself. No, it was limited by the bandwidth of the beam driving system, which the manufactures, obviously, tried to maximize. This limit is what set the shadow mask and RGB sub pixels/strip widths. The electron beam couldn't make different color, different colored phosphor patches were used. But, since bandwidth is mostly resolution * refresh, you could trade between the two: more refresh, less resolution. More resolution, less refresh. Early on, you had to download a "driver" for the monitor, which had a list of the supported resolutions and refresh rates. There was eventually a protocol made to query the supported resolutions, straight from the monitor. But, you could also just make your own list (still can) and do funky resolutions and refresh rates, as long as the drive circuit could accommodate. This monitor could do something like 75Hz at 800x600, and I think < 60 at 1080p.
  - hagbard_c 1y ago
    > I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions. Stereo audio is still fine even though 5.1 exists 300 dpi printers are still useable even though 2400 dpi printers exist double-glass windows are still fine even though triple-glass windows exist 2-wheel drive cars are still fine even though 4-wheel drive cars exist Just because something new appears on the market that new thing does not need to take over from all predecessors when those predecessors are good enough for the intended purpose, especially not when the new thing comes with its costs - power use and higher demands on GPUs in case of display with higher resolutions than really needed.
    - nomel 1y ago
      And feet are fine, even though shoes exist. Fire is fine, even though ovens exist. We're animals, that are perfectly fine living naked in the wild (some still do today). It's all complete excess. Feel free to abandon the progression of tech, but, I challenge you to use a modern panel for a couple months, then try to go back to 1080p. It's like the console players who claimed 30fps was serviceable, fine. Sure, but nobody wants to go back to 30fps after they've used 60hz, or 144hz, for a non-negligible amount of time. I also use a 1080p from time to time, it's servicable, but it's not comfortable, and it provides a far far inferior experience.
msgodel 1y ago
It works on Xterm for me, I didn't enable anything special except using a vector font. That's something that OSX doesn't even have now.

by zekica 1y ago

vouaobrasil 1y ago

On the other hand, subpixel rendering is absent from MacOS and makes it very difficult to using regular ol' 1920x1080 screens with modern MacOS. Yes, those Retina displays look nice, but it's a shame that lower res screens do not because they work perfectly fine except for the font rendering.

nomel 1y ago
My first (and last) 1920x1080 monitor was 50lb CRT I picked up on the side of the road, in 2003. I haven't owned a smartphone with a screen resolution that low, in over 10 years. I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions.
- vouaobrasil 1y ago
  That's true that they aren't interested. But I still like such screens. I used one quite recently, and it worked just fine for my needs.
- lttlrck 1y ago
  It's still a perfectly serviceable resolution. Of course 16:19 pushed down display costs leading to the demise of 1920x1200 which is unforgivable ;-) Those 120 pixels were sorely missed.
  - hnuser123456 1y ago
    You can still get 16:10, they're just classed as "business professional" models with matching price tag.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      Buy them refurbished instead, then.
- sam_lowry_ 1y ago
  Hm... I am reading this on a 1600x900 screen of my T420s Frankenpad while sitting in dusk in a German campsite. I ordered the screen some 10 years ago off Alibaba or something, and it is exactly the resolution and brightness I need. I hope I will die before this Frankenpad, because contemporary laptops are awful in so many aspects. You know... as you age, you really can't read all those tiny characters anyway.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    It sounds like you have a proper computer anyway, do you really care about non-fixed-width fonts? These are office suite and web browser fonts. If something needed to be rendered in some particular way, it should have been a PDF. For everything else there’s vim.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- perching_aix 1y ago
  A Full HD CRT from the roadside in 2003? As if this was just a thing people had happen to them? Is this some elaborate joke I'm missing? > I haven't owned a smartphone with a screen resolution that low Smartphone in italics, because smartphones are known for their low pixel densities, right? What? Did you own a smartphone at all in the past 10 years? Just double checking. > I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions. And how did you reach that conclusion? Did you somehow miss display companies selling and pushing 1440p and 4K monitors left and right for more than a handful of years at this point, and yet the Steam Hardware Survey still bringing out 1080p monitors as the king month to month? Sometimes I really do wonder if I live in a different world to others.
  - hnuser123456 1y ago
    CRT resolution was moreso limited by GPUs than the monitor itself. They don't have fixed pixels like LCD/OLED.
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      They still had very real limitations in terms of the signal they accepted, and color CRTs specifically had discrete color patches forming discrete, fixed number of triads.
    - nomel 1y ago
      > GPUs than the monitor itself. No, it was limited by the bandwidth of the beam driving system, which the manufactures, obviously, tried to maximize. This limit is what set the shadow mask and RGB sub pixels/strip widths. The electron beam couldn't make different color, different colored phosphor patches were used. But, since bandwidth is mostly resolution * refresh, you could trade between the two: more refresh, less resolution. More resolution, less refresh. Early on, you had to download a "driver" for the monitor, which had a list of the supported resolutions and refresh rates. There was eventually a protocol made to query the supported resolutions, straight from the monitor. But, you could also just make your own list (still can) and do funky resolutions and refresh rates, as long as the drive circuit could accommodate. This monitor could do something like 75Hz at 800x600, and I think < 60 at 1080p.
- hagbard_c 1y ago
  > I think it's an amazing feat of marketing, by display companies, that people still put up with such low resolutions. Stereo audio is still fine even though 5.1 exists 300 dpi printers are still useable even though 2400 dpi printers exist double-glass windows are still fine even though triple-glass windows exist 2-wheel drive cars are still fine even though 4-wheel drive cars exist Just because something new appears on the market that new thing does not need to take over from all predecessors when those predecessors are good enough for the intended purpose, especially not when the new thing comes with its costs - power use and higher demands on GPUs in case of display with higher resolutions than really needed.
  - nomel 1y ago
    And feet are fine, even though shoes exist. Fire is fine, even though ovens exist. We're animals, that are perfectly fine living naked in the wild (some still do today). It's all complete excess. Feel free to abandon the progression of tech, but, I challenge you to use a modern panel for a couple months, then try to go back to 1080p. It's like the console players who claimed 30fps was serviceable, fine. Sure, but nobody wants to go back to 30fps after they've used 60hz, or 144hz, for a non-negligible amount of time. I also use a 1080p from time to time, it's servicable, but it's not comfortable, and it provides a far far inferior experience.

msgodel 1y ago

It works on Xterm for me, I didn't enable anything special except using a vector font. That's something that OSX doesn't even have now.